Commercial products available for the care of clothing and fabrics in the home are well known. These products include liquid, powder and tablet detergents, liquid and sheet fabric softeners and other various products. Professional services, such as dry cleaners, are also widely available for cleaning garments subject to shrinkage or for those that are too delicate for common washer/dryer cycles. Typically, desired results from dry cleaning/laundering clothing is stain removal, odor removal, softening, static removal and reduced wrinkling.
It is not uncommon for a garment that has recently been cleaned but briefly used to lose those properties that are generally associated with freshly cleaned clothing. Indeed, depending on the environment a fabric is subjected to, odors, wrinkles, small stains and the like can quickly render the fabric "unclean" in the eye of the user. For example, a relatively brief exposure to tobacco smoke can leave a noticeable lingering odor on otherwise clean clothing. It is also common for clean clothing to become wrinkled before they are worn, such as when the clothes are packed in a suitcase for travel. Typically, these otherwise clean clothes are either tolerated by the user or sent back through an entire cleaning process.
Therefore, there is a need for a convenient, cost effective and efficient means for reviving clothing that is not in need of a complete laundering or dry cleaning cycle.
At least one commercially available product marketed by The Procter & Gamble Company under the name "Dryel", seeks to allow for treatment of clothing in the home dryer. U.S. Pat. No. 5,681,355 is marked on the product and is incorporated herein by reference. The Dryel product consists of a plastic bag, a premoistened cloth, bottled stain removal solution and an absorbent pad for use with the stain removal solution. The user is instructed to: 1) completely remove spots and stains prior to placing garments in the bag, preferably by placing the absorbent pad under the garment; 2) add one to four garments to the bag; 3) insert a pre-moistened cloth into the bag containing the garments; 4) seal the bag; 5) tumble the bag, garments and cloth in the dryer for 30 minutes at medium to high heat; and 6) hang the garments promptly to help decrease wrinkling. Users of the Dryel product have complained about the need for a bag and its limited capacity and the potential for entrapment, rather than removal, of particulates. Also, the use of the bottle/pad combination to remove stains adds to the complexity of the process.
Therefore, there is also a need for a home garment cleaning process and product that does not have the known drawbacks of the Dryel product. Such a product and process would preferably eliminate the need for a garment bag and simplify the stain removal process.
It is also known to use chemicals in clothes dryers to soften, freshen and reduce static on garments. Fabric softener dryer sheets have been used for these purposes for decades and are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos.: 4,237,155; 4,238,531; 4,327,133; 4,421,792, 5,094,761; 5,234,610; 5,348,667; and 5,376,287; all of which are incorporated herein by reference. To be effective, however, dryer sheets generally need to interact with damp clothing in order to deliver their intended benefits. As such, these dryer sheets are particularly suited for processing garments after removal from the washing machine and not for dry clothing in need of freshening.
Therefore, there is need for a fabric freshening, softening and/or static removing product that can deliver the desired benefits to relatively dry clothing.
Furthermore, as previously discussed, the ability to reduce or eliminate wrinkles on relatively clean clothing is also desired. Known attempts to reduce wrinkles by means of chemical ingredients in the wash include the use of zwitterionic surfactants, aminosilicones, curable aminosilicones, cellulose enzymes and alkyl amides. However, each of these ingredients have one or more drawbacks. For example, zwitterionic surfactants are believed to work best in cold water. Aminosilicones can cause yellowing and can be difficult to formulate. Curable aminosilicones require the heat of an iron to reduce wrinkles. Cellulase enzymes generally require several wash cycles before anti-wrinkle benefits become noticeable. Alkyl amides are not very effective relative to other wrinkle reducing agents.
Therefore, there is a need for wrinkle reducing formulations and products that can be used in conventional home dryers on relatively dry garments. Such formulations and products would preferably not require the undesirable bag required by the aforementioned Procter & Gamble Dryel cleaning kit.